


Four years

by crm16



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: (it's april and it is somewhat described just fyi), Canonical Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, implied mark/roger, possibly inaccurate representations of withdrawal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 18:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12613096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crm16/pseuds/crm16
Summary: The years leading up to the events of Rent. From the perspective's of Mark and Roger.





	1. Chapter one: Mark

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these two chapters at different times over the course of a year, so they may not perfectly match.

Mark makes it through his first year before deciding to bail. Honestly he’s impressed with himself, considering how much he didn’t want to start college in the first place. The only reason he did was because he had no idea what else he was going to do, (but his roommate hates college too, and always talks about moving to New York to do something that actually matters once he gets his degree, so now Mark has a plan, he’s just speeding it up a bit) and his perfectionist tendencies pushed him to stay this long. But he finished all his first year classes, and he’s really not looking to start more. 

“Fuck this.” He says, walking into his dorm room, after his last exam.

“What?” Benny questions, looking up from some book he’s reading. 

“Fuck. This. I tried it. It sucks. I don’t want to be a lawyer, or a business man, or whatever other responsible adult career my parents are thinking of. I want to be a filmmaker.” He throws his hands up, and waits a moment before adding,

“I’m moving to New York.”

Benny sits up, and puts the book away.

“Mark, that’s supposed to be the after college plan.” He says, looking like he thinks mark’s having some kind of breakdown.

“I can’t take three more years of this. I’m dropping out, I’m moving to New York.” Mark says firmly. 

“I don’t know if this is a good idea.” Benny tells him gently.

“I hate it here. Sure, it’ll be hard living in New York, but I’m willing to live in shitty places and work crappy jobs if it means I can do what I love. You hate it here too; you should  
come with me. If you’re so intent on a degree, you can transfer to a college in the city. We go to Brown, for god’s sake, it won’t be hard for you to get into one.” 

It takes him the rest of that night to talk Benny into it, but eventually he agrees, and looks into transferring schools. They decide to leave immediately, neither particularly interested in telling their parents in person. Benny’s are upset, but it goes fairly well once he explains he’ll continue with college. Mark packs, and plans, and doesn’t call his parents. He doesn’t know what they’ll say, or what he’ll say. His mom might understand, his father, on the other hand…

Eventually they call him, when he doesn’t come home like he’s supposed to. His father, as predicted, blows up. The conversation is a blur, but by the end of it he’s pretty sure his father will no longer be speaking to him. He doesn’t care as much as he should. He sits on his bed for a long moment. Then he calls Maureen, his best friend from back home. He probably shouldn’t, but sudden, and poor, life choices are her kind of thing, and he’s had a crush on her since they first met their freshman year of high school, so he figures that he has to try. He doesn’t even give her time to say hello. 

“I’m dropping out of college and moving to New York. Are you interested?” 

“Mark are you having a stroke or something?” Is her reply.

He can’t really blame her for being skeptical. This is so unlike him. Mark’s generally known for being responsible and sane. This decision is the exact opposite.

“No, Maureen, I’m not having a stroke.” He says.

“Nervous breakdown?” He rolls his eyes, “No.”

He can almost hear her smile through the phone. “Where do I meet you?” 

Mark doesn’t really think about what he’s just done until he and Benny are on the bus to New York. It hits him, as they enter the city, that he could have, and probably did, just condemn himself to a life of being dirt broke and/or homeless. He spends twenty minutes quietly freaking out, until they pull up at the bus station and he sees Maureen grinning next to her suitcase, and Benny claps him on the shoulder before standing.

If he ends up homeless, at least he won’t be alone.

\------

Due to their closeness, and the fact that they’re the only two who still live together, people generally think he and Roger were the first to meet. Or at least that Roger was the one who invited Mark to live with him. Which is actually pretty funny because they were the last to meet. 

While they hunt down jobs and a place to live. Mark, Benny, and Maureen stay in the world’s worst motel. It is literally the grossest place any of them have ever seen. But they’re all still so excited to be doing this, that they don’t mind too much.  
But they’ve been in New York for almost two weeks, and though their shitty motel room may not be that expensive, they won’t be able to stay there much longer. They’re starting to get a little desperate.

Mark meets Thomas B. Collins on the way to apply for another job he probably won’t get. He’s not paying a whole lot of attention to what’s going on around him as he walks, at least not until he nearly gets run over by a tall man dashing down the side walk. He stops just short of knocking Mark over, and glances quickly over his shoulder.

“If anyone asks, you never saw me.” The guy tells him.

“Uh…” Mark says, blinking, but the man is already ducking into an alleyway nearby. Another man comes hurrying down the street. He looks to Mark when he sees him standing, still blinking in confusion. 

“Did you see a guy running this way a second ago?” The man looks a little annoyed, and Mark almost says yes, but something stops him.

“Um. No, sorry.” He says. The man, nods and continues down the street. When he’s turned a corner, Mark looks over to the alley.

“He’s uh, gone now.” He calls. The tall man walks cautiously back into view, glancing both ways to ensure that Mark’s telling the truth. Then he grins, and claps Mark on the shoulder.

“Hey thanks kid. I owe you one. I’m Collins.” He says.

Within thirty minutes they’re sitting in a nearby diner and Mark is essentially telling Collins his life story. Initially he’s embarrassed, once he’s run out of things to say. But then Collins nods and launches into his own story. The man Collins had hid from earlier was an ex, the relationship had ended on a bad note, and Collins wants nothing more than to never see the man again. He lives with some guy he met six months ago, who’d punched some asshole when he’d given Collins and his then boyfriend shit. He’s a philosophy professor at NYU. He’d been diagnosed with HIV two months ago. He and his roommate (who’s in a band and doesn’t make much money) are having trouble covering rent and are in the market for some other people to crash with them. 

Mark, Maureen, and Benny move in that night. Collins introduces them to his roommate, Roger (who’s only a year or two older than Mark from the looks of it, though Mark had assumed he’d be closer to Collins’s age), by marching them into the loft and announcing that he’d ‘Picked up some strays’ and asking ‘can we keep them?’. Roger snorts.

“Will they pay rent?”

“Once they find jobs.” Collins assures him, arms slung around Mark and Benny’s shoulders. Maureen stands beside Mark, and gives Roger her best smile. Roger shrugs.

“I’m not sharing my room with any of them.” With that he continues playing his guitar. 

Roger and Collins end up sharing a room. As do Benny and Mark. Maureen gets a room to herself, though within a few months she and Mark are dating and in the same room anyway. Mark is dirt broke most of the time, and they do live in a crappy apartment, and he has to help Maureen put on weird productions every other week, but he manages to save up and buy a camera and a projector, and he’s finally doing what he loves. Collins bugs him for four months before he finally shows him the film he’s been working on. 

It’s nothing special. It’s about leaving home, since it had been such a big event in his life recently. As it plays Roger wanders in, back from wherever he was preforming this time, and sits to watch it too. Mark’s a little nervous, he’s been in the apartment for six months and he and Roger still aren’t quite comfortable with each other. When the reel stops he coughs awkwardly. 

“So… that’ all I’ve got so far.”

Collins nods for a moment. “That was really cool, kid.” He says finally.

“You’ll have to show us again when you finish it.” Roger adds, grinning. 

Mark doesn’t finish it. Eventually, he decides that he doesn’t like it, and moves onto new projects. He and Roger warm up to each other though, and in return for the movie viewing, he attends one of Roger’s gigs. 

“That was awesome!” He says afterwards, over the noise of the bar they’re at. 

“Thanks man.” Roger replies, “You want a drink?” He nods towards the bar.

“I’m nineteen.” Mark protests, willing to do some questionable things but not sure how he feels about underage drinking.

Roger laughs and buys him a drink anyway. Roger also helpfully drags Mark’s ass back to the apartment, way too much alcohol later. Mark giggles the whole way home, and generally makes Roger’s life difficult. When they do manage to get upstairs, Roger all but dumps him into Maureen’s arms.

“He’s your problem now.” Roger tells her sounding fondly annoyed, and heads to the room he shares with Collins. Maureen giggles when Mark sloppily tries to kiss her. 

“I always thought I’d be first one to get you drunk.” She tells him. 

Mark wakes at noon the next day with a splitting headache. He prays Roger isn’t home as he moves towards the kitchen in search of water. Roger is home, of course, because Mark has terrible luck. 

Roger grins when he sees him. “How ya’ feeling?”

Mark makes a vague groaning sound and pours a glass of water. “I would like to apologize for being a drunken pain in the ass last night.” He says, not looking at Roger.

Roger chuckles. “Don’t worry about it. Better you get really drunk for the first time in the company of a friend. Benny called you out sick. You should go back to bed.”

Mark silently thanks Benny, and does just that.

______

They’ve all lived together for two years when Maureen moves out. She’s gotten a job that pays decently, and decides to get her own place.

“Pookie, it’s fine. We aren’t breaking up; we just aren’t living together 24/7 anymore. We’ll still see each other all the time. But I need to live in a place that isn’t so crowded.” She reassures him. “It’ll be fine”

Mark doesn’t really believe her.

It’s not long after this that his mom starts calling him regularly again. He gave them the number when he’d moved in. But he only heard from her occasionally for those first couple of years. He still never talks to his father, though his mom sometimes hints that he should. It’s also not long after Maureen’s departure that Benny starts dating Allison Gray. He doesn’t ever bring her by the apartment, not that Mark can really blame him the place is kind of a dump, and they only meet her a few times. She seems nice, but Benny’s been different since they started dating. Less talk of doing something important with their lives, more focus on the business degree and future jobs. It’s small enough that Mark can’t really call him on it, but enough that he notices.

Mark keeps making parts of films, and working jobs he can’t stand. He and Maureen see a lot of each other still. He continues to help her out with performances. She’s gotten into protesting, and has begun to utilize the lot next to their building. Though she jumps from cause to cause. She refers to him as her production manager, but mostly that just means that he hauls around most of her equipment and fixes things that stop working. Sometimes he films, if it’s a particularly interesting performance, or a cause he supports.  
His favorite times are the nights after her performances, when she crashes in the apartment rather than go all the way back to hers. And the five of them hang out and drink, surrounded by Maureen’s equipment. It feels like things are still normal. Though things are changing very quickly. 

Roger meets April a few weeks before Benny gets married. He falls head over heels, Mark can see why. She’s smart and funny, and she’s got a smile that lights up the whole room. It’s a good thing that she and Mark get along honestly because she’s over all the time. 

“It’s a good thing Benny’s moving out.” Collins jokes one day, “I’m getting tired of sleeping on the couch or crashing with you while she’s here.” 

They all go to Benny’s wedding. It’s a very classy event, understandable considering Allison’s family, Mark can’t help feeling like they’re being ditched for money. But Maureen wears a black dress that belongs in a club rather than a wedding, and Collins and Roger crack jokes about the rich guests, and it makes Mark feel better.  
Benny buys their building soon after.

“It’s gonna be weird paying you rent.” Mark snorts when Benny tells him.

Benny laughs “Don’t worry about it, you’re golden.”

\-----

Mark isn’t sure at what point exactly April and Roger start doing drugs, somewhere a few months in to their relationship probably, but he doesn’t notice when it starts. Eventually it can’t be ignored anymore. Collins and Roger have a blowout fight one night when Roger stumbles in high. Mark hovers at the edge of the room. Not sure how to contribute to Collins’ argument, but unwilling to leave him to fight Roger about it alone. He supposes he can at least provide moral support. They’re ten minutes into the screaming match when Mark notices April hovering in the doorway. 

He really had been fond of her. But watching one of his best friends get thin, and not touch a guitar for six months, and stagger in at odd hours, has led to a good bit of resentment. He watches her watch Roger and Collins shout. And he sees the look on her face when Collins yells,

“Do you want HIV Roger? Cause shootin’ up and sharin’ needles will make that happen, sooner or later.”

They fight for a few more minutes before Roger finally yells “Fuck you!” and storms out of the apartment, with April following him. Collins sighs and goes to his, formerly Benny’s, room. Mark stays awake, unable to forget the look of fear on April’s face. 

She kills herself a month later. They enter the apartment to find April’s purse on the table and the bathroom door ajar, the light on. Mark has a bad feeling, which worsens when Roger calls for April, and she doesn’t answer. Roger reaches the bathroom first. Mark on his heels. Roger starts screaming for Collins, as he picks up April from where she lays in the blood soaked bathtub. Collins takes one look at the scene and sprints for the phone. It’s Mark that sees the note. He feels numb. He grabs it from its place on the sink. And leaves the bathroom, and the sound of Roger’s sobbing. Collins has just finished calling 911. Mark doesn’t say anything, just shows him the note. Collins closes his eyes and sighs. Tells Mark not to go into the bathroom. It’s then that Mark realizes he’s shaking.

Later that evening, when April’s body had been taken away, and Roger had seen the note and declared through tears that he was done with heroin then later passed out (in Mark’s bed because he couldn’t face his own) finally too exhausted to keep crying, and Benny, Mark, Maureen, and Collins had scrubbed the bathtub for an hour (wearing thick gloves at Collin’s insistence), and Maureen and Benny had gone home, Mark and Collins sit silently on the couch, drinking. 

“MIT offered me a job.” Collins says quietly.

“You gonna take it?” Mark responds.

Collins takes a sip of the beer he’s holding. “I don’t know, man. If Roger’s serious about quitting, you might need me. We both know there’s no way he’ll go to an actual rehab.”

“I think you should take it,” Mark says, “If he’s quitting someone will always have to be with him. Which means they won’t be able to work. MIT probably pays decent.”

And that’s the last they say about it. The next day they take Roger to get tested for HIV, to be sure, and start an AZT prescription, and Collins moves out a few days later. The next seven months of Mark’s life are hell. Roger screams and fights and shakes and sobs and pukes and tries to get out of the apartment to buy drugs. Mark fights back and gets hit and pleads and makes Roger eat and drink and shower and take his AZT and sits with him at night when he cries. 

He gives Maureen money he’s saved, or that Collin’s has sent, and she buys them groceries and picks up Roger’s medicine. That’s the most they see of each other. He misses her, but it feels distant, so much of his life revolves around Roger that it’s hard to really focus on anything else. 

Once a week Collins calls, and Mark updates him. Roger hasn’t tried to punch me this week, Roger managed to get himself a glass of water, Roger didn’t try to get out of the apartment today, Roger kept down dinner, Roger asked for a cup of coffee this morning. It’s little mile stones but each one means the world to Mark. After six months, when Roger can be reasonably left on his own for more than ten minutes at a time, Mark and Maureen go to dinner. 

\-----

“Pookie, I have something I need to tell you.” She starts. Mark is unsurprised, he figured that this is the way this date was going to go. 

“I’ve met someone else.” She tells him. And well ok, a breakup he expected, but this surprises him. He sighs, he’s so tired.

“Who? How long ago?” He asks.

“Two months ago. A lawyer, her name is Joanne.” She replies.

It takes him a few seconds to understand. He starts to laugh; he doesn’t know why. It isn’t funny. And it’s not like he even really cares, he’s bi, so is Roger, and Collins is gay, it's not like this is unexpected or a big deal. But something about it makes him laugh and then he can’t stop because he hasn’t laughed in seven months, and two of his best friends are dying, one is in Massachusetts, the other is trying to beat a heroin addiction, his third best friend is going to evict the tent city next to their building (which is so shitty and unlike the Benny he used to know that he can’t even really believe it. He'd thrown a mug across the apartment then cried for ten minutes when Maureen had told him), his girlfriend is leaving him for a lawyer named Joanne, and everything is so so bad right now.

Maureen is looking at him like he’s lost his mind, and it reminds him of the look Benny gave him in their dorm room three and a half years ago when he suggested moving to New York, and it’s this that finally makes him stop laughing. 

“Pookie?” She asks gently. He shakes his head at her, stands, and leaves. 

The apartment is dark when he gets back. He’s unsurprised to see Roger in his bed, his own is still too hard for him to sleep in, so he’s taken up residence in Collins’s old room or, on bad nights, Mark’s. Mark takes his shoes off and flops into the bed next to Roger. 

“You’re home early.” Roger mumbles into a pillow he probably brought from Collins’s bed, though really it’s probably Roger’s now. “Something happen?”

“She left me for a lawyer named Joanne.” Mark says, staring at the ceiling. Roger twists his neck to stare over his shoulder at Mark.

“Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” He asks.

“Not really.” Mark replies. Roger looks at him for a minuet then flips so he’s facing Mark and tucks his head into Mark’s shoulder. Which is new, but Mark doesnt really feel up to overthinking it. 

Collins calls him a week and a half later to announce that he’ll be home for Christmas, Mark is startled when he realizes it’s only two weeks away. His mother sends him a package, which turns out to contain a hot plate, which mark appreciates, and a note suggesting he call he father, which he doesn’t. A few days later Maureen calls to tell him that she’s protesting the eviction of the homeless in the lot next door on Christmas eve, and that his services as production manager are no longer required, he doesn’t say anything just hangs up the phone. 

When Roger pulls his guitar out of the closet the day before Christmas eve, Mark is so happy he thinks for a second that it might kill him. That’s as much as Roger touches it that day, and Mark doesn’t mention it, afraid he’ll scare Roger away. That night Mark decides he’s going to make a movie. About life, and like life, it’ll be unscripted. He thinks maybe scripts are what led him astray before. He feel's like, with the turmoil surrounding them, he needs something to focus on. And he’s excited to start a new project. 

The next day, just as he as he’s about to start filming, Roger pulls out his guitar, and starts to tune it. A weight leaves Mark’s shoulders. He’s filming, Roger’s playing, Collins’s coming home. Things are still shit, but they are starting to look up, just a bit.

 

“December 24, 9 pm, eastern standard time. From here on in I shoot without a script…”


	2. Chapter two: Roger

This is how Roger meets Mark:

It’s summer, and the apartment is hot and sticky because of it. Money’s running low, and try as they might they hadn’t been able to find a roommate yet, so he and Collins have had to prioritized rent over AC. Roger is sprawled across the couch, strumming idly on his guitar, when he hears Collins come in. Collins and company from the sound of it. Roger sits up as they enter the room. Collins has brought three others with him. A year or so younger than Roger, nineteen or twenty if he had to guess. 

“I picked up some strays.” Collins announces, “Can we keep them?”

There’re two guys and a girl. The first, a fairly-tall, dark skinned guy, gives him a look that is equal parts hopeful and suspicious. The girl gives him a wide smile, that obviously has worked well on other men, and Roger would be lying if he said it didn’t work on him a bit too. The last one, shorter with reddish blonde hair and huge blue eyes behind his thick glasses, just blinks at him hesitantly. Roger snorts, where did Collins manage to find these kids?

“Will they pay rent?” Roger asks, having looked them over.

“Once they find jobs.” Collins says, in a voice meant to be reassuring, slinging his arms around the shoulders of the two guys. It’s less than ideal, but Roger supposes they could do worse. They look harmless enough. He shrugs

“I’m not sharing my room with any of them.” Then he resumes playing his guitar.

\-----

For the first six months or so things between Mark and Roger are kind of weird. Roger and Maureen get along well, it’s hard not to get along with Maureen, who is, while incredibly annoying at times, ridiculously charming. And Benny is very personable, as well as outrageously smart. But Mark is quiet, and his life goal seems to be living as unnoticeably as possible. He also seems to be surgically attached to his camera, which makes conversation somewhat difficult. Two things help to break the ice between them.

First, Roger returns from a gig to see Mark and Collins huddled in the living room, watching a projection on the wall. Roger quickly recognizes as the elusive film Mark is always working on, and that Collins is always pestering him to show them. Roger flops down onto the couch and watches too. Though he has missed the beginning, and it’s obviously unfinished, what he sees of it is pretty interesting, and it’s obvious Mark has worked hard on it. 

“So… that’ all I’ve got so far.” Mark says, fiddling with the projector nervously once the film stops, not looking at either of them. Which Roger finds a little endearing.  
Collins nods for a moment.

“That was really cool, kid.” He says finally.

“You’ll have to show us again when you finish it.” Roger adds, grinning. He feels like he’s won a contest or something when Mark looks up and grins back at him. 

\-----

Mark does not finish the film. Roger learns that this is not uncommon, and Mark moves on to other projects. But things are a little easier between them now. And this ease is what motivates Roger to invite Mark to one of his shows, and it is this that finally, and permanently, warms them up to each other.

“That was awesome!” He says afterwards, over the noise of the bar they’re at. The show had been pretty good, one of their better ones in Roger’s opinion.

“Thanks man.” Roger replies, “You want a drink?” He nods towards the bar.

“I’m nineteen.” Mark protests, sounding surprised. Roger laughs, nearly broke and living in an apartment that is certainly violating several safety codes and Mark worries about underage drinking. Roger buys him a drink anyway.

He regrets that decision, when he is hauling an incredibly intoxicated Mark back to their apartment several hours later. Mark keeps losing his balance, and breaking out into giggles. Roger wonders if he was this annoying the first time he got drunk. 

“You have very pretty eyes.” Mark slurs, leaning heavily on Roger’s shoulder. 

And Roger, god help him, feels a little flustered at that. It is ridiculous that you haven’t been on a date in so long that a vague compliment from some drunken kid you barely know makes you blush. Roger thinks angrily at himself.

“This is the part where you say I have pretty eyes too.” Mark says, though the sentence is partially obscured by another fit of giggles. 

“You have pretty eyes too Mark.” Roger grumbles, rolling his eyes, as he hitches Mark up a little higher on his shoulder, afraid he’ll fall.

When he reaches the apartment, he dumps Mark in Maureen’s arms.

“He’s your problem now.” He announces as he heads to the room he shares with Collins. He hears Maureen giggle as Mark leans in to kiss her. 

He’s very glad that Mark doesn’t seem to remember their conversation in the morning, though he can’t really say why.

\-----

This is how Roger meets April:

Roger is bartending. They’ll be down two rent contributors soon; in the wake of Maureen’s departure from the apartment, and Benny’s engagement. So, he’s picked up an extra job to substitute his infrequent pay from performances. It’s late, near the end of his shift, when he notices a pretty redhead eyeing him from her seat at the bar. This isn’t particularly uncommon, Roger is not a bad looking guy, but he’s too tired to really consider trying to take her home. However, when he meets her eyes she gives him this blinding smile, and his mind goes sort of blank for a second. 

“Need another drink?” He asks her, “It’s on the house.” 

She nods. 

“I’m Roger, by the way.” He says, setting a bottle in front of her.

Her smile dims to an equally stunning smirk. “April.” She responds.

The next morning, Roger wakes to an empty bed. He’s a little surprised, he hadn’t expected it to be a one night stand, and certainly disappointed. He rolls out of bed and tugs on a pair of sweatpants. Collins and Mark are rattling around in the kitchen, making breakfast from the sound of it. He hears Maureen laughing, as he shuffles out of his room. No, wait. Maureen has her own place now, and she never shows up for breakfast. He rounds the corner, and there is April, leaning against the counter, wearing one of Roger’s old t-shirts, and grinning at Mark. 

“Wow, a filmmaker? You’ll have to show me something sometime.” She tells Mark, and he nods, ears going a little pink. Collins flashes Roger a thumbs up over her shoulder. 

“Morning.” Roger says. Sitting on the counter across from where April stands.

“Morning.” She replies, “Hope you don’t mind if I stay for breakfast.”

“Of course not.” He responds.

She nods and goes back to talking cheerfully with Mark and Collins. Occasionally glancing over at Roger with that same smile she gave him the night before. She ends up staying the whole day, and Roger only feels a little bit bad for kicking Collins out of their shared room for the second time in two nights. It’s a good thing Benny’s room will be free soon, because he sees this being a frequent occurrence.

\-----

Benny’s wedding is about as ridiculous as could be expected considering who he’s marrying. Roger laughs for a solid five minutes when Maureen shows up, dressed in a slinky black dress that barely hits mid-thigh. Mark turns bright red, but even he looks pleased. Frankly, none of them are very fond of Alison Gray, though no one admits it out loud. Roger suspects they, like him, feel a little sold out. Roger combats this feeling by getting outrageously drunk with Collins and cracking jokes about the other guests. Which is entertaining enough to be almost worth the hangover he gets the next day.

He doesn’t really know how to feel when Benny announces that he’s bought their building. Roger, Mark, and Collins stare at him in stunned, slightly confused, silence for a few minutes before Mark says:

“It’s going to be weird paying you rent.” With a snort.

Benny laughs, “Don’t worry, you’re golden.”

\-----

This is how Roger becomes a drug addict:

He and April are walking home after a gig. It hadn’t gone well, they’d been off their game, and the audience hadn’t been enthusiastic to begin with. Roger’s in a bad mood, and looking forward to crashing the second he gets home. April slings her arm around his hips as they walk, and flashes that smile of hers at him.

“Bet I could make you feel better.” She says.

“Oh really?” He asks, glancing down at her. She nods.

“Promise you won’t freak out?” She asks, pulling him to a stop.

“Okay.” He responds cautiously.

It all goes downhill from there.

Inevitably Mark and Collins notice. Hell, even Maureen notices eventually. It isn’t like Roger’s really attempting to hide it, he knows how badly it’s affecting him. He’s getting thin, he’s lost his job bartending, he can’t remember the last time he even looked at his guitar. He can feel them watching him, he knows they’re worried. But it doesn’t matter, nothing does really. 

Eventually Collins puts his foot down, Roger’s surprised it took him this long. He doesn’t remember much of the fight itself, he’d been too high to retain most of it. He remembers the shouting, remembers Collins yelling something about HIV. Remembers Mark, hesitating in a doorway, wanting to leave but needing to stay, his big blue eyes full of fear and resentment. Remembers April’s anxious face as she followed him when he stormed out. 

 

Collins, Roger, and Mark come home from the store, about a month later, to April’s purse on the table. There’s been something of a ceasefire in the apartment, they don’t fight as long as Roger keeps his drug habit separate from the apartment, which generally means keeping April separate from the apartment. The bathroom door is ajar and Roger calls for April, better they leave before he and Collins start shouting again. She doesn’t answer, and he makes his way to the bathroom, Mark follows. It never really occurred to him that something could be wrong. But there is April, wrists cut open, in a bathtub full of blood. 

His knees hit the floor before he registers what’s happening, and he scoops her into his arms. He screams for Collins, Collins will know what to do. Dimly he registers the sounds of footsteps, and someone frantically calling 911. He hears a horrible gasping high-pitched noise, it takes him a while to realize it’s him, sobbing. He doesn’t know how long he sits there, grasping at April, before someone tries to pull him away. He fights at first, he cant let her go hecan’t-hecan’t-hecan’t, but it’s the paramedics, so he forces his fingers to unclench from her shirt. They lift her away and zip her into a body bag. And oh, she’s dead isn’t she. He knew when he saw her, but this makes it true.   
Collins pulls him up, and maneuvers him to the kitchen, where he scrubs the blood off his arms. He feels like he’s moving through water, everything too slow, and oddly soundless. It isn’t until Mark appears in the kitchen with a clean shirt for him that he forces his brain back into the present. He’s still crying as he changes, but his sobs have leveled off. 

“Should we tell him?” Mark whispers to Collins, voice raspy, eyes wet. He’s been crying too.

“Tell me what?” Roger rasps, and Mark startles, apparently thinking Roger was still tuned out.

He glances at Collins, who nods at him, before handing Roger a little note. It’s in April’s handwriting, which is almost enough to send him back into hysterics, but it’s the message that really does it, We’ve got AIDS. 

“The needles.” He manages to gasp out. Collins nods again, and puts an arm around him, likely in an attempt to keep him standing. 

“I’m done with it, I have to be done.” He says.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning, you need to sleep.” Collins says as he begins to pull Roger towards his bedroom. But no he cant, because her things are there, and his bed will smell like her and no god no- He tries to articulate this through his racking sobs, its Mark who finally understands, and offers up his room instead, the first of many sacrifices he will make for Roger in the coming months.

Roger fades in and out of sleep, wracked by nightmares when asleep, and grief when awake. He hears Maureen and Benny come and go, likely helping with clean up. He also hears Collins and Mark deciding that Collins should go to work for MIT. So Mark can help Roger through withdrawal. 

What follows are the worst seven months of Roger’s life.

\-----

This is how Roger gets clean:

Mark. Mark is how Roger gets clean. Because one week in Roger is ready to throw in the towel, and it is Mark who stops him. God knows why though. In Roger’s rare moments of lucidity, in between bouts of vomiting, shaking, and fighting Roger hates himself for what he’s doing to Mark. But still, when his period of awareness ends, he fights tooth and nail to leave that apartment and get a fix. It’s only due to the strain the drugs caused on his body that Mark is able to fight back enough to subdue him. 

But still Mark stays. Blue eyes, red rimmed with exhaustion. He makes Roger shower, and eat, and take his medicine. Sits with him when he cries, and lets Roger sleep in his bed with him on bad nights. He keeps Roger alive. Roger can see the toll it takes on him, but never once does he complain. Maureen brings them food, when Roger’s in one of his non-violent moods. She never stays more than a few minutes. Sometimes he can hear Mark on the phone with Collins. Over time he improves, stops fighting, starts talking more, starts to act more like a human being. His grief lessens too, though he never shakes the image of April’s smile from his head, the way her eyes lit up. 

After about six months Mark announces that he’s going on a date with Maureen. And does Roger think he can manage on his own for the evening? Roger blinks at him from where he’s huddled in a blanket on the couch.

“Yeah man, you should go. You certainly deserve it after putting up with me for so long. I’ll be fine” Roger tells him, not so much worried about his own wellbeing as unhappy with the prospect of a night by himself. He hates having to use the shower without someone else nearby. But god does Mark deserve to get away from him.

“If you’re sure.” Mark says.

“Of course, tell her I said hello.”

“I will.” Mark replies, then leaves.

Roger does shower, and it goes as poorly as expected, so he crawls into Mark’s bed instead of his in what used to be Collins’ room. He never sleeps in the room that was his when April was around. He doubts that he’ll ever be able to. He’s just dozing off when Mark gets home. He squints at the clock. Mark has only been gone for a couple of hours, he hopes Mark didn’t end the date early because of him. After a few minutes Mark flops into bed beside him.

“You’re home early.” Roger says, not lifting his head from the pillow, “Something happen?”

“She left me for a lawyer named Joanne.” Mark says, staring at the ceiling. 

Holy shit. Roger twists his neck to stare over his shoulder at Mark. “Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” He asks.

“Not really.” Mark replies. Roger looks at him for a minute then flips so he’s facing Mark and tucks his head into Mark’s shoulder. Mark tenses up for a second surprised, the relaxes, leaning his head against Roger’s. Cuddling is new. Roger wonders if, perhaps, that is something they should address. But decides it’s a conversation for another time. 

Collins calls a little over a week later, to tell them he’s coming home for Christmas, and the final impacts of Mark and Maureen’s breakup hit when she fires him as her production manager. Roger is sort of glad she did, because poor sweet Mark would probably have showed up to her protest. Despite the fact that she’s been cheating on him for what appears to be quite a while. Things stabilize again after that. Their routine easy to maintain now that Roger has regained most of his self-sufficiency, within the apartment at least. 

Roger very hesitantly digs out his guitar from where it had been collecting dust on the day before Christmas Eve. He can feel Marks barely contained joy fill up the apartment, though he makes no mention of it. Roger doesn’t play it that day, not quite ready yet, but he leaves it laying on the kitchen table to ease himself into the idea of playing it. Mark spends the majority of the evening in a strange hectic dash around the apartment, really cleaning it for the first time in months. When Roger questions it he claims he wants to show Collins that they’re doing okay. Roger laughs, which is strange, and kind of nice.

“When has Collins ever cared what this place looks like? No amount of cleaning could make this place look like a respectable dwelling.” He jokes.

 

Mark chuckles, looking a little surprised at Roger actually attempting humor. Then he admits hesitantly that he’s had a film idea he wants to try out, and he’s trying to work out some of the pre-project nerves, but he won’t answer any questions Roger asks him about it. 

He starts filming the next night, as they’re waiting for Collins to show up. Roger watches him anxiously fiddle with his camera setup for twenty minutes, before he decides to give them both a sort of early Christmas present. He picks up his guitar from the kitchen table, and starts the process of tuning it, watching Mark from the corner of his eye. As the first, albeit terrible sounding, notes come from it Mark’s whole body goes tense in surprise. Roger watches him take a big, relieved sounding breath, before he returns to his camera. Roger grins down at his guitar, pleased to have made Mark happy, even if he can’t get the damn thing to tune. Mark begins to speak to the camera. 

 

“December 24, 9pm, eastern standard time, from here on in I shoot without a script…”


End file.
